Organs Tailor-Made With Body’s Own Cells

Organs Tailor-Made With Body’s Own Cells

For decades, the field of regenerative medicine has been promising a future of ready-made replacement organs — livers, kidneys, even hearts — built in the laboratory. For the most part that future has remained a science-fiction fantasy. Now, however, researchers like Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm are building organs with a different approach, using the body’s cells and letting the body itself do most of the work.

“The human body is so beautiful, I’m convinced we must use it in the most proper way,” said Macchiarini, a surgeon who runs a laboratory that is a leader in the field, also called tissue engineering.